Columbia County Overview

Columbia County: Gateway to great living.

“Best places to live”

--CNN Money

“Best places to live with young families”

--Nerd Wallet

Once you stand on the 80-foot high bluff of the Savannah River Rapids Park, with sweeping vistas of the Savannah Rapids and the head gates of the Augusta Canal before you, you’ll know why it’s been called “perhaps the most spectacular view in the Augusta metro area.” The Canal was built nearly 170 years ago by a forward-thinking community seeking to attract new industry, and today, as part of the Augusta Canal National Heritage Area, the Park also affords a sweeping view into history, along rambling routes and paths like the canal’s former towpath and heritage-rich Bartram Trail. The lock keepers cottage, built in 1890, today serves as a welcome center for the county and as a resource for canal and county history.

That history reaches deep: The oldest pottery in America was found on nearby Stallings Island, where preserved shell mounds and middens stand as a record of Native American culture at its height between 3,500 and 3,800 years ago. At the Park, a barbecue pit and square dance pavilion built in the 1880s are also part of the landscape, evidence that civic engagement and a friendly welcome have always been a feature of Columbia County life.

Our standards of living are high in Columbia County, no matter how those standards are defined. Defined by dollars and cents, our per capita and median household incomes are some of the highest not only in the Augusta MSA but in the entire state of Georgia. And if standards of living are defined by a vibrant, active quality of life that offers unlimited opportunity for personal and professional fulfillment—driven by the idea that as great as life is today, even greater promise lies ahead—then Columbia County’s standards are the highest found anywhere.

In fact, it’s not simply our view of the past, but rather our view of tomorrow, that sets Columbia County apart. Nowhere is this commitment to the next generation more evident than in the quality of our schools. As might be expected in a county where educational attainment rates are some of the highest in the state, student achievement is also high and opportunities are abundant in Columbia County educational institutions, beginning in pre-kindergarten and extending through post-graduate programs.

So as spectacular as you’ll find the view from 80 feet in the air at the Savannah Rapids Park, the view of a soaring future is even more exciting in Columbia County schools: